More quotes on Reincarnation from Theosophy

Quotes from Helena Blavatsky

Hence, remembering that, save in the case of young children, and of individuals whose lives were violently cut off by some accident, no Spiritual Entity can re-incarnate before a period of many centuries has elapsed. (SD Vol. II p. 303)

. . . reminiscence . . . no faculty or attribute of our physical memory, but an intuitional perception apart from and outside our physical brain; . . . while memory is physical and evanescent and depends on the physiological conditions of the brain. . we call reminiscence the memory of the soul. And it is this memory which gives the assurance to almost every human being, whether he understands it or not, of his having lived before and having to live again. (The Key To Theosophy, p.125)

Reincarnation means that this Ego will be furnished with a new body, a new brain, and a new memory. Therefore it would be as absurd to expect this memory to remember that which it has never recorded. (The Key To Theosophy, p.128)

To get convinced of the fact of re-incarnation and past lives, one must put oneself in rapport with one's real permanent Ego, not one's evanescent memory. (The Key To Theosophy, p.128)

We reject the idea of a new soul created for every newly-born babe. We believe that every human being is the bearer, or Vehicle, of an Ego coeval with every other Ego; because all Egos are of the same essence and belong to the primeval emanation from one universal infinite Ego. (The Key To Theosophy, p.110)

. . . man may escape the sufferings of rebirths and even the false bliss of Devachan, by obtaining Wisdom and Knowledge, which alone can dispel the Fruits of Illusion and Ignorance. (SD Vol. I p.39)

Reincarnation will gather around him all those other Egos who have suffered, whether directly or indirectly, at the hands, or even through the unconscious instrumentality, of the past personality. (The Key To Theosophy, p.141)

Historical

Reincarnation: The doctrine of rebirth, believed in by Jesus and the Apostles, as by all men in those days, but denied now by the Christians. All the Egyptian converts to Christianity, Church Fathers and others, believed in this doctrine, as shown by the writings of several. . . "Resurrection" with the Egyptians never meant the resurrection of the mutilated mummy, but of the Soul that informed it, the Ego in a new body. The putting on of flesh periodically by the Soul or the Ego, was a universal belief; nor can anything be more consonant with justice and Karmic law. (See "Pre-existence") (Theosophical Glossary by H.P. Blavatsky p. 277)

Golden Thread

From the Key To Theosophy:

ENQUIRER. I have heard some Theosophists speak of a golden thread on which their lives were strung. What do they mean by this?

THEOSOPHIST. In the Hindu Sacred books it is said that that which undergoes periodical incarnation is the Sutratma, which means literally the "Thread Soul." It is a synonym of the reincarnating Ego -- Manas conjoined with Buddhi -- which absorbs the Manasic recollections of all our preceding lives. It is so called, because, like the pearls on a thread, so is the long series of human lives strung together on that one thread. In some Upanishad these recurrent re-births are likened to the life of a mortal which oscillates periodically between sleep and waking. (The Key To Theosophy, p.163)

. . . It is said that that which undergoes periodical incarnation is the Sutratma, which means literally the "Thread Soul." It is a synonym of the reincarnating Ego. . . which absorbs. . . recollections of all our preceding lives. It is so called, because, like the pearls on a thread, so is the long series of human lives strung together on that one thread.
(The Key To Theosophy, p.163)

Reincarnation in Animals

In calling the animal "Soulless," it is not depriving the beast, from the humblest to the highest species, of a "soul," but only of a conscious surviving Ego-soul, i.e., that principle which survives after a man, and reincarnates in a like man. The animal has an astral body, that survives the physical form for a short period; but its (animal) Monad does not re-incarnate in the same, but in a higher species, and has no "Devachan" of course. It has the seeds of all the human principles in itself, but they are latent. (SD Vol. II p.196 footnote)

Reincarnation in Egypt

The Spirit of Life and Immortality was everywhere symbolized by a circle: hence the serpent biting his tail, represents the circle of Wisdom in infinity; as does the astronomical cross-the cross within a circle, and the globe, with two wings added to it, which then became the sacred Scarabæus of the Egyptians. . . For the Scarabæus is called in Egypt (in the papyri) Khopirron and Khopri from the verb Khopron "to become," and has thus been made a symbol and an emblem of human life and of the successive becomings of man, through the various peregrinations and metempsychoses (reincarnations) of the liberated Soul. This mystical symbol shows plainly that the Egyptians believed in reincarnation and the successive lives and existences of the Immortal entity. (SD Vol. II p. 552)

In Kircher's Œdipus Egyptiacus (vol. iii., p. 124) one can see, on the papyrus engraved in it, an egg floating above the mummy. This is the symbol of hope and the promise of a second birth for the Osirified dead; his Soul, after due purification in the Amenti, will gestate in this egg of immortality, to be reborn from it into a new life on earth. For this Egg, in the esoteric Doctrine, is the Devachan, the abode of Bliss; the winged scarabeus being alike a symbol of it. The "winged globe" is but another form of the egg, and has the same significance as the scarabeus, the Khopiroo (from the root Khoproo "to become," "to be reborn,") which relates to the rebirth of man, as well as to his spiritual regeneration. (SD Vol. I p.365) (Possible cross-reference to Symbols and / or Ancient Egypt)

. . . addressing in magic formula that which is called, in Egyptian esotericism, the "ancestral heart," or the re-incarnating principle, the permanent EGO, the defunct says:- "Oh my heart, my ancestral heart necessary for my transformations,. . . . . . do not separate thyself from me before the guardian of the Scales. Thou art my personality within my breast, divine companion watching over my fleshes (bodies)" (SD Vol. I p. 220) (Possible link to Myths)

The Book of the Dead gives a complete list of the "transformations" that every defunct undergoes,. . . We must, moreover, remind those who try to prove that the ancient Egyptians knew nothing of and did not teach Reincarnation, that the "Soul" (the Ego or Self ) of the defunct is said to be living in Eternity: it is immortal, "co-eval with, and disappearing with the Solar boat," i.e., for the cycle of necessity. This "Soul" emerges from the Tiaou (the realm of the cause of life) and joins the living on Earth by day, to return to Tiaou every night. This expresses the periodical existences of the Ego. (Book of the Dead, cvxliii.) (SD Vol. I p. 227) (Possible link to myths)

The Egyptian priests have forgotten much, they altered nothing. The loss of a good deal of the primitive teaching was due to the sudden deaths of the great Hierophants, who passed away before they had time to reveal all to their successors; mostly, to the absence of worthy heirs to the knowledge. Yet they have preserved in their rituals and dogmas the principal teachings of the secret doctrine. Thus, in the seventeenth chapter mentioned by Maspero, one finds. . . 4) He is the Law of existence and Being (V. 10), the Bennoo (or phœnix, the bird of resurrection in Eternity), in whom night follows the day, and day the night-an allusion to the periodical cycles of cosmic resurrection and human re-incarnation; (SD Vol. I p. 312) (Possible links to Myths)

Reincarnation and Druids

The Druids believed in the rebirth of man. . . in a series of reincarnations in this same world; for as Diodorus says, they declared that the souls of men, after determinate periods, would pass into other bodies. (SD Vol. II p. 760) (Possible cross-reference to Druids / History)

More Quotes by William Q. Judge

Now the moment we postulate a double evolution, physical and spiritual, we have at the same time to admit that it can only be carried on by reincarnation. This is, in fact, demonstrated by science. It is shown that the matter of the earth and of all things physical upon it was at one time either gaseous or molten; that it cooled; that it altered; that from its alterations and evolutions at last were produced all the great variety of things and beings. This, on the physical plane, is transformation or change from one form to another. The total mass of matter is about the same as in the beginning of this globe, with a very minute allowance for some star dust. Hence it must have been changed over and over again, and thus been physically reformed and reimbodied. Of course, to be strictly accurate, we cannot use the word reincarnation, because "incarnate" refers to flesh. Let us say "reimbodied," and then we see that both for matter and for man there has been a constant change of form and this is, broadly speaking, "reincarnation." (Ocean p. 61)